by John Saul
And it was better not to know, really, since there wasn’t anything she could do about it anyway.
Seth heard his father rap once on his door. Then, as always, he opened it without waiting for Seth to respond. But this evening, for the first time in his memory, Seth didn’t feel frightened.
“What the hell have you been doing?” Blake Baker demanded, stepping into the room and closing the door behind him.
With a strange feeling of detachment, Seth turned around to face his father. He could see that his father was furious with him, but somehow his father’s rage wasn’t tying his own stomach into knots, or making his knees tremble, or bringing him to the brink of crying.
In fact, his father’s anger wasn’t making him feel anything at all.
“You answer me, boy,” Blake said, his voice dropping dangerously. “What have you been doing?”
Seth cocked his head, and his brow furrowed as he tried to decide what to tell his father. Not that it would make much difference—his father wouldn’t believe the truth, and had already made up his mind what he was going to do. He was already unbuckling his belt.
“You’re not going to do that anymore,” Seth said quietly.
His father froze, the belt half out of its loops. “What did you say?” he asked, his eyes boring into Seth with the coldness that always made Seth cower.
This time, Seth didn’t move.
“I don’t want you to hit me anymore,” he said.
“Since when do you decide what I do and what I don’t do?” Blake grated. “You do what I tell you. And since you didn’t answer either of the questions I asked you, you know what happens next.” He pulled the belt free from the rest of the loops and wrapped the tag end around his hand a few times so the buckle was dangling from two feet of leather. “Drop your pants, Seth—I’m going to teach you some respect.”
Seth shook his head.
A vein in Blake Baker’s forehead began to pulse as he slapped the belt buckle against the palm of his free hand. “You don’t want to do this, Seth,” he said. “You’re only making it worse for yourself.”
Seth shook his head again.
Blake’s right fist tightened on the belt, and his arm rose in the air.
And Seth focused his mind.
Blake Baker’s arm began its downward arc, but instead of lashing out at Seth, the buckle whipped around and struck his own face. As the metal tore into the flesh of his cheek, Blake Baker roared in pain, lurched backward, then lashed out at Seth once more.
Again the belt buckle swung all the way around and ripped into Blake, this time catching him in the right eye.
Another howl of agony erupted from his throat, and he hurled himself at Seth, still trying to lash out with the belt.
As if seized by some invisible power, Blake crashed face first against the wall, grunted, and sank to his knees as blood began to gush from his nose. For a moment it seemed he might slide to the floor, but then he gathered his strength and heaved himself back to his feet just as the door flew open.
Jane Baker, her face ashen and clutching a fireplace poker in one hand, gazed at her bleeding husband. “Seth!” she screamed. “What are you—”
Seth whirled around. “Go away!” he yelled. “Just leave us alone!”
But it was too late. Blake lurched toward Seth once more, the belt raised high again. But at the last moment he veered off toward his wife. Instinctively, Jane Baker raised her arms to fend off her husband’s careening body, but it was too late. His full weight crashed against her, and she uttered a muffled grunt as the spur of the poker plunged deep into her own neck. A second later blood began to ooze from the wound. With a look of something akin to surprise in her eyes, she reached out to brace herself against the wall, and the poker fell from her neck, clattering to the floor.
Blake, stunned at the sight of the wound in his wife’s throat, let the belt fall to his side and took a step toward her.
The color already fading from her face, Jane Baker slowly sank to the floor, blood now spurting from the deep puncture in her throat. As the reality of what was happening to her slowly sank in, she gazed up at her husband. Her mouth worked, but instead of sound only blood bubbled from her lips.
Paralyzed by what he was seeing, Blake stared down at Jane, his own face going pale as the geyser of blood from his wife’s punctured aorta began to slow and the last of the color drained from her face. As the gush slowed to a trickle, her body slumped to one side, her head lolling back so the wound the poker had opened gaped lewdly.
As the realization of what he’d done sank in, Blake came back to life. Straightening, he tightened his grip on the belt once more, and wheeled around to face Seth. Blood was still streaming from his nose and his wounded eye, but now his rage overwhelmed the agony of his own wounds. “You killed her!” he bellowed. “God damn you, you—” The belt raised high, he charged at Seth.
And at the last instant, as the belt buckle slashed toward him, Seth stepped aside.
His father lumbered past him, staggered through the open door of Seth’s room, and lurched against the banister over the stairwell. Losing his balance, he pitched forward. For a second or two he seemed almost to hover in midair, his free hand flailing wildly in search of something to hang onto. Then he tilted forward and, just before he fell, his fingers found the banister. But it was too late. Slippery with his own blood, his fingers lost their grasp and he pitched headfirst to the floor below. His single brief howl of shock and terror was cut off as his head struck the limestone floor of the foyer.
As the silence that fell over the house stretched from seconds into minutes, Seth Baker gazed at his mother. Finally, he went over to kneel beside her. Reaching out, he gently touched her cheek. “You never stopped him,” he whispered. “You just let him do it.”
Then he stood, left his room, and gazed down at the floor below. His father’s body lay facedown on the blood-smeared limestone, and Seth could tell by the angle of his father’s head—and the stillness of his body—that he was dead too.
At last he turned away, went down the same stairs he’d come up only a short while ago, left the house by the back door, and walked away into the darkness of the night.
Chapter 45
YRA SULLIVAN HAD THOUGHT THE DAY WOULD never end. She could barely believe it when Phil Lambert told her that no one had seen Angel since lunchtime. Afterward, she’d gone straight home, certain that Angel would be there. Father Mulroney went with her, and insisted on coming into the house. When they found no sign of Angel, he hadn’t wanted to leave her alone.
“Not in this storm,” he’d said, and though he tried to pretend that he was only worried that the electricity might go out, she knew right away that there was more to it than that. She’d seen it in his eyes as they flicked around the rooms of her house as if looking for something he knew was there even though he couldn’t see it. She heard it in the hollowness of his voice as well, as he made the explanation she hadn’t believed. Not that she wanted to stay in the house by herself—not after the terrible stories Father Mulroney had told her, and the strange things she’d seen in that house.
So she went back to the church with Father Mulroney, and spent the afternoon repeating her prayers again and again, and telling herself over and over again that the things Father Mulroney had told her couldn’t possibly be true. Yet as the storm raged outside and she stayed on her knees in front of the altar, her fingers moving over the rosary beads in perfect unison with the silent rhythms of the prayers she repeated, she could not banish the memories of the strange things that had happened in her house and the strange vision she’d seen.
The vision of the girl dressed in black, the way Angel had been dressed when she left the house this morning.
It had been a vision—she knew that. But not the same kind of vision she sometimes had when, after long hours of praying, she caught glimpses of the Holy Mother in the curling smoke of the votive candles, or in the rippling surface of the holy water as she dipped her fing
ers in the font. The Holy Mother was real—as real as she herself.
And those visions had comforted her.
The black-clad figure had not comforted her at all. Indeed, even its memory filled her with the kind of chill she could only think of as coming from death itself.
So she’d prayed.
And finally the storm had ended.
And still she prayed, until now her knees were so stiff and sore, she could barely stand up, no trace of daylight was visible through the stained-glass windows, and the candles she’d lit hours earlier had burned to little more than flickering stubs.
Leaving the church at last, Myra made her way home through the darkness. She was late, and she knew Marty would be angry, but even the thought of his fury didn’t quicken her step. Indeed, as she left the town behind and started out on Black Creek Road, the closer she came to the house at the Crossing, the slower were the steps she took. When she came around the bend in the road and could finally make out the shape of the house silhouetted against the night sky, she stopped walking entirely.
And gazed through the darkness at the house.
And knew there was a reason why her steps had slowed.
It wasn’t just the things Father Mulroney had told her, or the recollection of the things she’d seen, or the uneasiness she’d felt in the emptiness of the house a few hours ago. No, this time it was different.
This time the house wasn’t empty.
And something was wrong.
Part of Myra wanted to turn away and go back to town, back to the church, back to Father Mulroney.
But instead she made herself go on.
Marty Sullivan wasn’t sure when the voice had started whispering again. He was slouched low in the chair in front of the television, but he’d long since stopped watching its flickering images or listening to its droning sound.
Instead he was listening to the voice that was whispering to him, and he was watching the images in his head.
“You can have her. . . .” the voice whispered.
“You want her. . . .”
He’d finished the last of the beer an hour before Angel came home, but found half a bottle of bourbon in one of the boxes in the kitchen that Myra had never bothered to unpack.
Myra!
Where the hell was she, anyway? Spending all her time at that stupid church, praying and taking care of the damned priest when she should have been home taking care of him.
Just the thought of the priest made Marty add an extra couple of inches of whiskey to his glass. By the time Angel walked into the house, he’d worked his way through three more shots.
He didn’t have to ask Angel where she’d been—he knew! Out with that son of a bitch Blake Baker’s kid. And he knew what they’d been doing too. Myra might not believe it, but he knew.
His daughter was a slut.
A slut who had taken a boy she’d barely even met into her bedroom.
“It isn’t him she wants,” the voice whispered, “it’s you . . . she wants you just the way you want her. . . .”
That was why she hadn’t spoken to him when she came in, why she just glanced at him as she headed for the stairs, acting like she didn’t see him at all. But she had seen him—he could tell.
And she wanted him.
Just like the voice said.
He could feel it.
He listened to her going up the stairs, and heard her close the door to her room.
“You know what she’s doing. . . .” the voice taunted.
Oh, yeah, he knew. She was taking off her clothes. . . .
The thought made Marty tremble, and he poured more of the whiskey from the bottle into his glass, then drained the glass.
“She wants you to see her,” the voice continued. “She wants you to touch her. . . .”
As the television droned on, and the image on the set continued to flicker, Marty drank the rest of the whiskey and listened to the voice.
“Go on,” it whispered. “You know what you want to do . . . you know what you have to do. . . .”
At last, with the voice whispering to him, Marty rose from his chair and went into the kitchen. He opened the drawer next to the sink, and a moment later his fingers closed on the handle of Myra’s favorite knife.
The thumb of his other hand traced its edge, testing its sharpness.
“That’s right,” the voice whispered. “You know what you want to do . . . what you have to do. . . .”
The knife in his right hand, Marty started up the stairs.
Angel heard the footsteps on the stairs and knew exactly what they meant.
He was finally coming for her.
The door to her room was shut, but it wasn’t locked—he’d taken away the key—and she knew that if he wanted to come in, he would.
Nothing would keep him out.
As soon as she’d entered the house, she knew it was a mistake—she should have gone with Seth.
Or gone to her aunt’s.
Or gone anywhere.
But she hadn’t done any of those things, and now she was alone without even Houdini to help her, and he was finally coming for her. But it’s going to be all right, she told herself. I can make him stop. I know I can.
She was standing next to the chair by her desk, still dressed in the clothes she’d worn to school. She’d considered putting on one of her old sweatshirts when she got home, but changed her mind when she remembered her father walking in on her the other day, staring at her half-naked body with a look in his eye that told her what he was thinking. So she hadn’t risked taking off any of her clothes.
Nor had she been able to absorb any of her English assignment. She’d reread the same page over and over, her eyes scanning the words but not seeing them, so focused was she on listening for the sounds that would betray her father’s presence outside her door.
Now, as his footsteps drew closer, she tried to prepare herself. She gripped the chair.
And she waited.
The planking in the floor groaned as if protesting every step he took, and Angel could almost see him walking with exaggerated care, but weaving from all the beer and whiskey he’d been drinking.
He was outside her door now, but before the door opened she sensed something at her feet and looked down to see Houdini gazing up at her. As the bedroom door began to open, the cat jumped into her arms.
The door swung slowly open to reveal the figure of a girl holding a cat as black as the clothes she wore, and once more Marty Sullivan heard the voice whispering in his head.
“Yes . . . oh, yes . . . my little girl . . . my perfect little girl. . . .”
He clutched the knife in his right hand even more tightly and stepped forward, crossing the threshold and entering Angel’s room.
“Yes . . .” the voice inside whispered. “Closer . . . close enough to touch her . . .”
With the voice whispering hypnotically inside his head, Marty moved closer.
Angel held Houdini tightly as she saw the knife in her father’s hand, and as he slowly moved toward her, she felt the cat tense and heard his low growl shift into a warning hiss. But her father kept coming, and as he drew near, with the knife raised high and aimed at her face, she imagined its point sinking into one of her eyes, stabbing deep—
The thought died as she recoiled from the pain, which was so vividly imagined that she could actually feel it, and even see the blood pouring from the wound.
A scream erupted in the room, a scream that perfectly reflected the pain Angel was imagining and the carnage she saw in her mind’s eye. Except the scream hadn’t erupted from her throat, and the blood wasn’t pouring from a wound in her own face, but rather, from her father’s! And her father was reeling now, his free hand reflexively pressed against his eye. Blood was streaming from it, oozing through his fingers, running down his face and his neck, spreading over his shirt.
But how had it happened? The knife was still in his other hand, and still pointing at her.
But it was cover
ed with blood!
How? She’d been watching, and she hadn’t seen him do anything! She’d just imagined the knife plunging into her own eye and—
And her father’s own eye had bled!
What if she’d imagined it sinking into her breast?
Another howl burst from her father’s throat, and now blood was spurting from a great gash in his chest. Then the howl died away and he was moving toward her again, and his lips were moving, and she could hear words.
But it wasn’t her father’s voice. And as the voice poured forth from the bloody figure lurching toward her, the cat in her arms launched itself outward.
“Killing me . . .” the voice whispered. “. . . have to touch her . . . have to have—”
The cat struck Marty Sullivan’s face, its claws extended, its fangs bared. As its teeth tore into the flesh of Marty’s face, he let out another scream of agony, and finally turned away, lurching toward the door, groping with his free hand as he staggered out of the room.
Myra Sullivan heard the first scream as she was coming through the front door. She froze, but when she heard the second scream, and knew it was coming from the second floor, she left the front door standing open and hurried toward the foot of the steep staircase. “Angel?” she called out. “Angel!”
Now she could hear movement upstairs, and muffled grunts, and a sound like sobbing.
Angel!
She mounted the stairs, but before she was even halfway up, a figure appeared on the landing above, and as she gazed at it, Myra could barely believe her eyes. Blood was spurting from the figure’s chest, and half its face seemed to be torn away. Transfixed by the terrible vision above her, she gazed at it in awe. Then, seeing the knife in the figure’s right hand, she realized it wasn’t a vision at all. “Marty?” she breathed.
Instead of answering her, the great bloodied form of her husband teetered at the top of the stairs for a moment, then began tipping toward her. Reflexively, Myra raised her arm to fend off the falling form of her husband, but it was too late. The arm holding the knife stretched straight ahead of him as Marty Sullivan plunged headfirst down the stairs.